


All Things Equal

by hornybraincell



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Cock Warming, Coerced Intoxication, Creampie, Drugging, F/M, Intoxicated Sex, M/M, Mindbreak, Multi, Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Unhappy Ending, Vaginal Sex, Whipping, Whump, rape marathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 20:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hornybraincell/pseuds/hornybraincell
Summary: Vaan has been at the bad end of a lot of sketchy deals, but he's always managed to turn it around. Why should this be any different?
Relationships: Vaan/Bergan, Vaan/Drace, Vaan/Gabranth, Vaan/Ghis, Vaan/Judges, Vaan/Zargabath
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	All Things Equal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gizamalukesgrotto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gizamalukesgrotto/gifts).



> this was done by Vee for a friend in a christmas exchange!! i fully admit i know NOTHING about FFXII except that 1) Vaan is very whumpable and 2) the Zargabaath fanart was super hot. unedited because fuck it.
> 
> please take my ignorance of canon into consideration and enjoy responsibly! also the tags, take those into consideration, too.

On a list of places Vaan has spent the night, the imperial jail is low by priority but higher than he expected by comfort. Of course, there’s no bed, but there was food around what he assumes must have been breakfast and, as food goes, it wasn’t an immediate threat to his health. Vaan couldn’t always say the same for Penelo’s cooking.

The cell is bare, but it’s dry and, being indoors, reasonably warm. There’s even a sink and toilet at one end, an offer of dignity that leads Vaan to wonder if he’s perhaps in one of those cushy jails reserved mostly for political prisoners.

He can’t be sure, though, since he spent the trip from the market to the cell unconscious. Vaan rubs at the back of his head, feeling the tender new lump forming there. Goddamn guards, always making things harder than they needed to be.

He’d hardly deserved being hauled off like that, but “deserved” has never been a measure of how the empire metes out its “justice.” When he’d come around a corner and seen two guards harassing a young woman running a stall, he’d done what he always did: Vaan made it his problem. One short, tense conversation and one blow to the head later and well. Here he was.

It’s around mid-afternoon the following day (by Vaan’s best guess) and he’s just started thinking about his fourth escape plan when a guard comes down the hall and clangs a plated arm against the bars.

“Get up.”

Vaan cocks an eyebrow and does not move.

“I said get _up_ ,” says the guard in that same flat, affected tone they all use. Vaan closes his eyes again, thinking hard about whether he could fit his body into the vent set into the wall above his head. The guard sighs. “Fine, don’t get up. We can release somebody else instead.”

Vaan can’t help the thrum of anxious anticipation that passes through him at that. “Release?”

“Are you deaf? Yes, you’re being released.”

“As a matter of fact, it’s pretty possible that my run-in with your colleagues last night has left me with some hearing damage—”

“For fucks’ sake,” the guard grumbles. “Get over here in the next ten seconds or spend the next month here. I don’t care which.”

“Okay! Okay. I’m coming.”

The guard puts him in shackles, which Vaan expresses his opinion on, but the guard responds with the same level of care characteristic of his position. Which is to say, an impassivity verging on sadism.

Vaan’s earlier suspicions about the nature of this place bear out as the guard leads him out of the jail and into the main part of the building that houses it. It’s clear that the building isn’t a jail at all, but a house of state. Low-angled light streams in through translucent-curtained windows and falls lightly on dozens, possibly hundreds, of ornamental wall-hangings. High-ceilinged hallways lead into internal atriums that lead into only more hallways. They pass a few guards stationed here and there at closed, wooden doors, but they pass far more house staff in muted yet meticulously uniform clothes. 

Vaan is finally about to complain about the length of the hike, possibly casting some ill-advised doubt about whether or not he really is being released, when they round one last corner and enter a hallway that terminates in a set of immense wood and glass double doors. His guard nods to the two guards flanking the doors and they open them in perfect unison. 

The room beyond is probably no more excessive than the others Vaan and the guard have passed by without entering, but there’s still something about it -- the scale of it, the brightness, the immediately evident cleanliness -- that takes his breath away at first glance. The floors are stone, but a massive and plush rug dampens his footsteps as he enters at the guard’s insistent tug. Then the smell hits him. _Food_. Freshly cooked meat, heady aromatic spices, bread, a faint smell of hot coffee. It’s a...banquet hall? 

An immense horseshoe-shaped table takes up most of the floor, gently curving away from the entrance and back again, a preposterous array of dishes. Soups in great steaming taurines sit next to lines of fresh, whole pies, which frame even larger dishes of sharp-smelling curried vegetables. It is a feast the likes of which Vaan hasn’t even seen in his wildest dreams, all assembled for a line of no more than half a dozen haughty-looking officials. Or at least, that’s what Vaan assumes they must be, for although they are dressed as finely as any court politician, he doesn’t recognize any of their faces.

They sit near each at the top of the table’s curve, but not so near that Vaan could mistake them for friends. He counts them out: one, two, three, four.

At the far left is a man with pale lavender hair and a matching beard; his eyes are serious as he leans across the man next to him and listens to the woman on the second man’s other side. He and she – the purple-haired man and the sharp-faced woman – conspire over the plate of the second man, whose face is pinched and whose mousy brown hair wings out strangely from the sides of his head. The second man doesn’t seem pleased with this arrangement, but neither does he do anything about it except purse his lips so hard Vaan fears they’ll disappear into his mouth and not return.

The third person, the only woman in the group, turns away from the man with the lavender hair and affixes her gaze to Vaan the way one points a blade at an opponent. Her brows rise in a sadistic arch only enhanced by the tell-tale bruises of sleeplessness that ring her eyes. “Hm,” she says less to Vaan than at him.

The only one who seems actively engaged in eating is the fourth man. His honey-blond hair sweeps up and away from his face in an ironically whimsical curl, perfectly opposing his wild mutton-chops and bushy brows. His hair makes him seem like he should be youthful and carefree, but his face is anything but. It’s a mixture of bored and cruel, eyes flicking between the purple-haired man and his plate with a distinct mistrust.

The woman holds up a finger to shush the purple-haired man and her eyes search Vaan’s face.

“It appears our guest has joined us,” she announces to the room, without breaking eye contact with Vaan. Her voice is harsh but somehow still musical. It gives Vaan the impression of a heavy knife. There’s something familiar about it, but Vaan can’t place it. He hasn’t paid attention to politics in a long time.

“Hmm,” says the first man.

“So he has,” says the second.

“Can we get on with it?” Asks the fourth.

“Beginning with the obvious,” the second man cuts in, folding his hands on the table before him, “what’s your name, boy?”

“Oh. I—I’m, uh—”

“Don’t lie, please,” says the woman, those brows rising so high Vaan worried they might cut into her hairline. “We ask only as a courtesy.”

“I’m Serath.”

The blond man chuckles around a mouthful of beef. “Told you. Petty criminals, all the same.”

The woman sighs and the first man gestures with an open hand. “Try again for us? I believe it starts with a V?”

Vaan is taken aback, so much so that he steps backwards, bumping into the chest of the guard who is standing _quite_ close. “Vaan,” he says, “my name is Vaan. Since you already seem to know.”

“Thank you,” says the woman. “So, Vaan, we assume you know why you’re here, yes?”

A heavy silence fills the room, punctuated by the scraping of the blond man’s utensils on his fine china plate. At last, Vaan breaks it. “Yes, I do.” He bows his head, feigning remorse as well as he knows how. “I’m a thief.”

He thinks the way his hair frames his face is probably very serious and pitiful.

“He admits it!” Says the blond man.

“Of course he does,” says the brunette.

“A blessing,” says the man with the purple hair.

“Thank you,” says the woman. “For making this easy rather than hard.”

Vaan’s head jerks up, the fear and surprise there far from feigned. Are they going to—?

“Don’t look so frightened. We aren’t ignorant, we know you’ve had a hard life. Some of us would like to offer you a little mercy. Unshackle him, please.”

“Mercy?” That’s never seemed a word to be in the vocabulary of the empire. Vaan massages his wrists once they’re free, suspicious of his good luck. 

“Shocking, I know,” says the brown-haired man, with a strange, threatening little grin. A shiver of disgust passes down Vaan’s spine.

“To begin with…” The woman snaps her fingers and two servants seem to materialize from the walls to bring a small table and chair to where Vaan is standing, right in the middle of the floor. The woman gestures to Vaan and nods her head. “Sit, let us give you a proper meal.”

Vaan doesn’t have much time to think it over. The guard behind him reaches around to pull the chair back and place a hand on his shoulder. He sits. More servants come up to the side of the table and start putting down dishes, making Vaan’s head spin. There’s a bowl of soup, a hunk of hearty bread, a plate of fish and rice, seasoned with fresh herbs. There’s a glass of _wine_ and a bowl of fragrant oil, possibly for the bread. Within moments, the table is full to the point of creaking. It’s enough to bring tears to Vaan’s eyes.

“I—” he begins, about to offer a sincere thanks, until he remembers where he is and wipes any genuine emotion off his face. He bats his lashes as yet another servant places a set of utensils at the side of his plate and gives a coy, embarrassed kind of smile. “Thank you.”

The woman seems to smile with those still pursed little lips. “Of course. The empire is generous, is it not?”

Vaan blinks. “It is certainly a land of abundance.”

The blond man chuckles again, this time without food in his mouth. He finally seems to have finished his meal. “He’s a regular little politician, isn’t he? How he hides it…”

“No need to be rude,” adds the first man. “It’s not every day a boy like him sits in a hall like this.”

“And isn’t that such a shame,” adds the woman.

“That depends on who you ask,” says the blond man. 

“Go ahead,” the woman says, “eat.”

Vaan does, only trying to hide how much he wants it. Every single part of it is delicious: the warm, yeasty bread, the delicate texture of the fish, the savory soup. The wine is rich and slightly spicy and warms him as well as any cup of tea ever has. 

Vaan tries to pay attention to the politicians at the table, if they make comments about him, but there is a part of him too consumed with the task of eating to even try focusing properly. If he’s going to get out of this, he’ll need the energy. Once again, it’s the woman’s voice that brings him out of it. 

“So,” she intones, “Vaan the contrite thief. What do you suppose we do with you?” 

Vaan swallows around a bite that suddenly seems as big as a boulder. His heart leaps into his throat. Here is where he needs to be careful. 

But before he can speak at all, the man with the purple hair hums and cuts in. “Back to the cell. Give him some time to consider his actions.” 

“No,” says the brown-haired man next to him, “to the front lines. Let him learn what the plenty of his marketplace costs.” 

“Bullshit to all that,” says the man with the blond hair and the cruel smile. He swigs his wine and levels Vaan with a gaze that turns his blood to ice. “To the block.” 

Vaan stands on shaky feet. Who are these people? Politicians don’t sentence like this. 

“No, no,” says the woman. “Sit. I won’t let them decide just like that. Tell me, what would _you_ like for us to do? Where would you like to go?” 

Vaan drops back into the seat, head swimming so much he barely feels it. He schools his face and summons a look he hopes crosses between innocent guile and pitiable desperation. Sometimes it works on the soft-hearted guards. “Home,” he says in the most even tone he can manage. “I want to go home.” 

The woman’s face softens for a moment before a smile breaks across her mouth like a crack in glass. “There. You want to go home. Then you shall go home, no matter what they say.” 

Relief fills Vaan like cool water filling a jug on a hot day -- sweet and sudden enough to send a shiver down his spine. He lets out an enormous breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

A soft clanking sound echoes behind him, which Vaan at first registers as the clinking of dishes. A deep, familiar voice speaks. “What about what _I_ want?” The chill of relief transforms into a violent nausea that propels Vaan up from his seat, stumbling so hard he knocks over his chair in the process. 

“Gabranth,” says the woman, “late judges don’t get votes. And yet I get the feeling you’ll get what you want anyways.” 

“Always do,” says the man who murdered Vaan’s brother. He says it almost casually, just as he brushes past Vaan’s shoulder. 

Vaan wants to collapse to the floor - to howl, to run screaming, to slit his throat before he can find out what happens next. _Judges_. These are the judges. Gabranth in his armor, Drace the woman, and the others, Zargabaath, Ghis, and Bergan. Vaan, facing down the five most brutal soldiers of the imperial army, wants for the first time in his life to give up. Because this? This is just too damn much. 

“Oh! Look at him, he does know us,” says the blonde man, so mean he must be Bergan. His reputation for sadism precedes him. Bergan laughs, but it sounds slow to Vaan’s ear. He shakes his head to clear it, but all it does is make the room spin. Violently. If he didn’t really feel ill before, he does now. 

“And here I thought he was just stupid,” says the brown-haired man in a patronizing lilt. 

“It’s not many of his… station that have the privilege of seeing our faces.” 

“True enough, Zargabaath,” says Gabranth, “but he knows mine. Don’t look so shocked. Of course we know who you are. You can’t stay anonymous forever, even on the street.” 

Vaan’s tongue feels thick in his mouth but he forces out two words. “Fuck you.” 

“There’s the spirit,” says Gabranth. “Bergan, I think you’re going to like him.” 

“You know, I think I will.” 

“Look at you,” says the brown-haired man, the final judge. Ghis, then. “Have you figured us all out, then? I am Ghis, and that’s Zargabaath.” 

“Th-thanks,” slurs Vaan, as sarcastically as he is able. “I’ll remember that when I tell everyone at home how--” a gray wave of nausea rolls over Vaan again and his vision fades out at the edges, the bright room going pale and colorless. He knows what’s happening to him, his body, but he fights it anyways. He’s not going to let himself get drugged without a fight. He slams a hand on the table in front of him, pushing some of the dishes against one another. “When I tell them how ugly you all are.” 

Zargabaath clicks his tongue. “Poor boy.” Genuine pity seems to enter his voice, but it gives Vaan no comfort. He doesn’t have to hear the rest to understand. He already knows. A part of him has known since he entered this room. “You _are_ home.” 

The crash of dishes and Bergan’s harsh, barking laugh are the last things Vaan hears before he blacks out. 

\--

It feels like Vaan just _blinks_ , but he knows it’s been much longer than that. He can tell that it’s light out, but whether it’s the same day or not he can’t be sure. The way his head is aching, he really doesn’t care. 

“Mm, you’re awake. Good. I was beginning to get worried.” 

Vaan’s mouth feels like it’s full of wool and when he goes to say _Gods forbid_ , all that comes out is a croak. 

“Don’t strain yourself,” says Zargabaath from where he sits on the edge of the bed. The bed, Vaan realizes, that he has been propped up on. _Zargabaath’s_ bed, if he were pressed to be specific.

Vaan swallows around his dry tongue and blinks hard against his headache. “Woulda been nice if you’d told me to slow down.” 

“I don’t think they expected you to eat all of that before the sedative hit. I admit it was impressive. Have some of this.” 

Vaan eyes the canteen with suspicion. Zargabaath shrugs and takes a drink himself. Before he can cap it, Vaan holds up a shaking hand and takes a drink himself. 

“There we go,” says Zargabaath. Even in the privacy of his own chambers, he looks stiff, controlled. His hair looks at once windswept and perfectly placed. Vaan can feel himself staring, but he doesn’t bother to stop just because he’s noticed. A strange twinkle crosses Zargabaath’s eye as Vaan lowers the canteen. Before it can settle in his lap, Zargabaath is wrapping his hand around Vaan’s to take it back. But the hand lingers and Zargabaath’s pale gray eyes flutter shut for just a moment and he exhales as though experiencing a chill. 

Vaan is suddenly _extremely_ aware of where he is. He tucks his feet back up towards his body and tries to scoot away but the hand on his grips tighter and slips down to curl about his wrist. Once again, Zargabaath’s eyes meet Vaan’s. 

He clucks his tongue at Vaan like he had done in the banquet hall. “Be calm. This will be easier if you’re calm.” 

Vaan can’t help the noise of disgust that tumbles out of his mouth. “Easier for you, maybe.” 

Zargabaath reaches with his other hand to take the canteen from Vaan and set it on the nightstand in one impossibly smooth motion. Despite his height and wide shoulders, Zargabaath moves with a quick, lithe grace, sliding from the edge of the bed to the center and bringing the hand not on Vaan’s wrist up to cup his cheek with something approaching tenderness. 

“You’re doing very well, you know,” he says from _far_ to close. 

Vaan twists his face away and Zargabaath follows, moving even closer and pushing Vaan’s hair back from the side of his face. Vaan’s gut churns, whether from the food earlier or the clear and unavoidable threat he’s not sure. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly and Zargabaath makes a little murmuring sound, somewhere between wonderment and chastisement. 

Zargabaath’s flat palm curves against Vaan’s jaw and he wraps his thumb under Vaan’s chin, holding his face in a wide and surprisingly soft hand. “Oh, boy, don’t play so coy. You can’t be as innocent as all that. I know your type.” 

Vaan clenches his teeth and opens his eyes, forcing himself to look at the blank little space between Zargabaath’s cold eyes with as much murderous intent as he can muster. “So I’m not the first kid you’ve raped, then? What’s missing? More tears? More pleading?” 

The hand at Vaan’s chin disappears for half a breath and then he’s reeling, head jerking back horribly as that same hand _cracks_ across his face. A sob releases itself from Vaan’s throat as if by reflex. The scent of leather and lavender oil fills his nose as Zargabaath closes the distance between them and kisses Vaan’s parted mouth with as much certainty and skill as his hand had in striking. 

Another sob leaves Vaan’s mouth and tumbles into Zargabaath’s, who seems to savor it with a pleased hum. Vaan takes the kiss numbly until Zargabaath’s tongue tries to lick into his mouth, smooth and warm and precise as it parts his lips. But he can’t help himself, Vaan struggles. He twists his wrist in the other man’s grip and tries to turn his body away, but the hand is back, holding his face in place as Zargabaath massages his tongue and licks up the backs of Vaan’s teeth. _Oh_ , but his teeth--

Vaan bites down. 

He expects Zargabaath to yell and slap him again, to call him an insolent little bitch and throw him down and get this all over with. But he doesn’t. He groans into Vaan’s mouth and tugs hard on Vaan’s hair until Vaan is the one gasping, letting Zargabaath’s tongue slip free of his mouth. 

Vaan is frozen in stunned silence, tears pricking at his eyes, as Zargabaath releases his hair and reaches for a small buckle at his hip. It’s a leather loop, meant to hold a scabbard or something similar. “Remember what I said to you about staying calm. There is an easy way and a hard way. I don’t want to make this difficult.” 

Vaan sniffs hard as he tries to come to terms with what’s about to happen. He wants to fight, but there’s something so appealing in the way Zargabaath says it, like there really might be a way to get this over with _easily_. He feels numb as Zargabaath pushes his knees apart and settles in between them, hooking his softly bearded chin over Vaan’s shoulder to see his back. He takes Vaan’s wrists in his two hands and pulls them together, sliding the leather band around them like a snug promise. 

“There,” he says quietly enough that it causes gooseflesh to break out across Vaan’s neck, “no fighting.” 

A single tear escapes Vaan’s eye and he sniffs again, horror going number and number by the second. Zargabaath kisses his neck and places gentle fingertips against Vaan’s ribs. He feels him up and down and up again, covering the skin of Vaan’s torso with his hands and his lips even before undressing himself. 

By the time he takes Vaan’s pants off, Zargabaath is tenting his pants and his eyes look far away, even as they slide over the freshly bruising skin of Vaan’s neck and collarbones. His marks, but he hardly even seems to see them. Vaan marvels at the strange sensation of wondering what they look like, realizing he can’t see them without a mirror. He tries to remember how hard Zargabaath sucked as the other man lays him out on his back on the bed and exposes him to the air. 

“You are so beautiful,” Zargabaath murmurs and swiftly, shockingly swallows Vaan’s cock into his mouth. Vaan would be disgusted at how he rises to attention, if he were able to feel anything at all. He swallows around Vaan over and over, enthusiastically suckling the head and moaning around it as he does, and Vaan counts the fraying threads that he can see on the canopy of the bed. 

After more than 100 threads, Zargabaath seems to exhaust his desire for Vaan’s cock and pulls away, swallowing down his own spit and whatever pearly precum he may have teased from Vaan in the process. Vaan does not look to see if he has managed any. Sweetly, in a way that feels mocking, Zargabaath lays his cheek against Vaan’s hipbone and stares dreamily up at his young captive. 

“Thank you for that, Vaan, I haven’t been so indulged in years.” 

Vaan swallows and continues to count. 

“Nothing to say?” 

Vaan grinds his teeth. “Are you done?” 

Zargabaath chuckles and Vaan can feel it down to his _bones_. It reverberates over his entire body and for a brief second, he wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling that. 

“You’re being so patient. No, we’re not done, but you’re doing just fine.” 

With the same grace as he has done everything, Zargabaath undresses and maneuvers Vaan so that their places are reversed. Vaan sits astride Zargabaath’s unexpectedly slim hips, the judge’s cock tapping insistently at the base of his spine.

Zargabaath holds the leather loop binding Vaan’s hands with two fingers of one hand and has the other draped around Vaan’s hip, trying to encourage his hips to rock. The middle finger of that second hand traces a hot line back from Vaan’s hipbone to his asscrack, pressing between his cheeks to tap ever-so-gently at his hole. 

“How many men have you taken here, hmm?” 

“Why does it matter?” Vaan asks, dispassionate. 

“I want to know how kind I should be to you.” 

“I’m virginal.” 

Zargabaath’s eyes twinkle in that nauseating way. His finger presses and presses, starting to breach Vaan’s rim. “No you’re not.” 

“Then what do you want to hear?” 

“The truth.” 

“Fine. Ten men. A hundred men. It hardly matters.” 

Zargabaath goes still and silent for a moment, his eyes tracing all the contours of Vaan’s face and making Vaan feel entirely too attended-to. “If that’s what you think,” says Zargabaath, “I suppose it’s fine by me.” 

Before he can prepare or react, Zargabaath adjusts his grip, sliding both hands down to cup the cheeks of his ass and lifting him up and back. The odd intrusion of the tip of Zargabaath’s finger is replaced with the hot, spongy head of his cock, feeling entirely too large to fit into the hole it seeks yet pushing so hard that Vaan knows it will, one way or another. He chokes and cries out. 

“Please! Gods, fuck, it hurts.” 

“I doubt it hurts more than a hundred men.” 

More tears well into Vaan’s eyes as Zargabaath sinks him down, inch by agonizing and dry inch, upon his cock. “I lied! I haven’t taken a hundred men. I haven’t even taken ten! Please, please take it out.” Vaan chokes on a sob as he feels his ass sink fully onto Zargabaath’s hips. 

“Oh, but the hard part is over, now, and you’ve done so well.” Zargabaath reaches up to brush away one of Vaan’s tears with a thumb. “Don’t cry, enjoy it as much as you can.” 

He begins to fuck into Vaan slowly, but no matter how slowly he goes or how long it goes on, it doesn’t ever stop burning. Every single movement and twitch brings some new sharp pain to the place where Vaan is being violated. He tries -- he tries _so hard_ \-- to keep his noises inside, but he can’t help the broken sounds Zargabaath drives out of him as he picks up speed in the dying light of the bedroom. 

Zargabaath’s release would be a relief if not for how it aggravates the terrible sting in Vaan’s ass. It hurts like being kneed in the balls; so sharp and unrelenting that tears spill freely out of his eyes and Vaan feels like someone is trying to suck all the air out of his throat through his nose. 

Zargabaath just sighs, dreamy and soft, and pulls Vaan off his lap to deposit him on his side on the bed. 

Vaan is concentrating so hard on anything other than the pain still radiating out from his ass that he doesn’t notice Zargabaath standing and pulling his outside leg up into his chest. Something smooth and hard teases at his entrance again and before Vaan can beg or deny it, Zargabaath has slipped it neatly inside and Vaan can feel the base of it nestled up against his hole. A...plug of some sort. 

“There,” says Zargabaath, running a hand up and down Vaan’s flank in the cruellest mockery of comfort that Vaan has ever experienced firsthand. “I’m sorry for this,” he says. 

“You’re not,” Vaan says.

“Believe what you want,” Zargabaath says as he removes the leather strap from Vaan’s wrists, “just get some sleep.” 

And Vaan, for all of the defiance he still believes he carries in his soul, agrees. There’s little else for him to do now but sleep, and pray that the morning hurts less. 

\-- 

It’s dark when Vaan wakes and Zargabaath is, blessedly, not there. 

Instead a pair of guards look pityingly down at his fetal form and help him stand and put his pants back on before leading him out of Zargabaath’s chambers and into the hallway. 

The walk leaves no new impression on Vaan and he tries very hard not to think about what new horror awaits him. Work, maybe, or back to the jail cell. Death if he’s lucky. 

He’s left in the open doorway of a grand office, with high windows showing the city below in all of its glory as the sun just begins to rise on it. Ghis sits at the massive wooden desk, head lifting as the guard announces Vaan’s arrival. 

“Ah. The new boy.” 

Vaan can see Ghis’ eyes roam over his face (defeated, underslept) and his neck (bruised) and tries to understand the expression he sees in response, but the judge is so impassive it’s uncanny. 

“Thank you, guards. Leave us.” 

The door shuts behind Vaan almost silently, it’s so well-oiled. He can feel the rush of air being pushed out of the way, and then there he is. And there is Ghis. 

“Come.” 

Vaan goes, stepping up to the front of the desk. Ghis considers him, then pushes away from the edge of the desk and comes to see him. 

“You look so tired.” 

“I am,” Vaan admits. “Zargabaath, he--” 

“Twisted, isn’t he?” 

Vaan looks down before his face can betray him. “You knew.” 

“I’ve heard stories about his...tenderness.” 

Vaan looks up and what he sees does nothing to set his fears to rest. Rather than sadness, pity, or even disgust, Ghis’ mouth turns up in amusement. “What would you know about it?” Vaan says the words with as much venom as he can muster. 

“Nothing,” Ghis responds. “You’ll find there’s no tenderness in me at all.” 

Ghis puts his hand on Vaan’s shoulder and presses down, down, until Vaan is on his knees. Ghis opens his pants. By the time Vaan gets up again, the sun is fully in the sky over the city, bathing all the places he knows in warm light. He swallows the bitter taste of Ghis’ cum and feels no comfort at the sight. 

Ghis directs him to kneel beneath the desk and, for no reason Vaan can understand, he complies. He sits there with his mouth open and jaw aching, chin nestled warmly in the crease between Ghis’ thighs. He breathes and swallows and blinks but he doesn’t think at all. He doesn’t think about the smell of the judge’s skin or the texture of his garments against Vaan’s face. Nor does Vaan think about getting up and leaving, or biting down. 

By the end of it, Vaan isn’t sure if his mouth will ever close properly again and his tongue feels like it’s made out of wool cloth. It’s a testament to that discomfort that he didn’t even notice the plug in his ass. The plug he remembers when Ghis finally instructs him to get up from the floor and bend over the desk. Ghis nudges at the flat bottom of the plug, sending a dull pain through Vaan’s ass, but Ghis seems unmoved by his hiss of discomfort. 

He pulls the plug out without ceremony and it nearly knocks the wind from Vaan’s chest. Although he’s been uncomfortable all day, it’s the first time he’s felt truly afraid. What happens if Ghis fucks him and he just breaks? Can he really take it twice? How? 

The answer, Vaan finds, is yes and you just do. 

Ghis cums inside him just as Zargabaath did and replaces the plug right where it was before. Vaan chokes back a noise of frustration at the now-familiar weight, but he bites his tongue before he can earn any more of Ghis’ ire. 

“There,” Ghis says, patting Vaan’s ass lightly and pulling his own pants back up, leaving Vaan naked but for his vest and the plug. “It seems Zargabaath has good taste.” 

Vaan studies the wood of the desk, how it whorls between his hands and feels beneath his fingers. Ghis calls the guards into the room as he exits. This time Vaan doesn’t let them help him dress. 

He’s brought to what looks like a cell next, although it’s more along the lines of one that would be found in a religious order than in a jail. 

It’s a dingy, windowless little stone room, but it has a proper bed, a desk and chair, and a water closet (albeit without a door). To Vaan, after everything, it looks like heaven. 

He lowers himself to the bed, curls his aching knees to his chest, and falls face-first into nightmares he will not remember when he wakes. 

\-- 

When Vaan does wake, it’s to the smell of something warm and appetizing and the distinct sense of a presence in the room with him. 

He turns, cautiously, from the side where he was facing the wall, to his back. 

“Judge Drace,” Vaan says, his voice hoarse in a way he doesn’t want to think about. 

“Vaan the thief,” she says back, unsmiling. “I’ve brought you food.” 

Vaan rolls back over. The food makes his stomach ache in want, but he knows what happened last time he ate the food she offered. “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.” 

“Oh, please. The last time was only as a safety precaution. We didn’t want you getting hurt in transport.” 

“ _Transport_ ,” Vaan spits at the wall. “Ha.” 

“Are you not pleased with your accommodations? This is hardly the worst room in the castle.” 

This room--? Vaan spares a glance back over his shoulder. Does she think he was brought here right away? Does she not know what they did to him? 

“Come on,” Drace says, “come eat. It’ll make you feel better. You need it.” 

One could call Vaan a fool for relenting, but he was a _hungry_ fool in desperate need of food. He chewed through the bread like it was nothing and drank his soup like it had come from the Taurine of Eternal Life. And then there was that rich, spicy wine. Vaan had never been so grateful for anything in his life.

“Better?” Drace asks as Vaan pauses from inhaling his meal. 

“Surprisingly...yes.” 

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Drace pours more wine from a decanter into Vaan’s cup. There is still something stiff and wrong about her manner, but for a single, stupid moment, Vaan wants to trust her. It was her who treated him with mercy in the banquet hall, after all. And it was her who came to him with his first proper meal since that afternoon. 

He thinks of the way she spoke that afternoon. If anyone had power over these men, she must. Vaan makes the decision to do something incredibly stupid, but given the circumstances it’s his best option. 

“Listen,” Vaan says, eyes cast down in a way that makes him feel somehow less himself. “There’s something… Something happened. You said I should have been brought right here from the banquet hall. But that’s not what happened. I was-- I was given to Zargabaath, in his room.” 

“Oh?” Drace asks, her brows knitting together in something that Vaan can’t quite identify as concern. 

“He… He raped me. In his bed. Then I was taken to the office of Judge Ghis. He raped me, too.” Vaan finds that saying the words out loud is more than he was ready to do. Those damned tears spring back to his eyes and pour and pour out of them. He even chokes on some of the words.

“Oh, Vaan,” says Drace, her face finally falling into a sympathetic frown, “I never said you should have been brought here right away.” 

“Wh-what?” Vaan blinks his wet and reddened eyes in disbelief. 

“You were brought exactly where we intended. Zargabaath first, then Ghis.” 

“No,” Vaan says, horror dawning on him anew. 

“Of course,” Drace counters, “the empire is a well-oiled machine because of its judges. Like any good machinery we need to be...how to put it. Greased in turn. Guard, may I have a hand?” 

Vaan stands, but there’s nowhere else in the room for him to go. Drace stands back and folds her arms over her chest as two guards come into the room and grasp Vaan by the biceps, nearly lifting him off the floor. 

“Manacles,” says Drace dryly, “into the loop there, by the door.” 

The guards follow her cryptic orders and Vaan finds all too soon what they mean as he’s hauled across the room and chained by the wrists to a metal loop set into the wall. He feels trapped, like an animal. 

“That’s all, thank you. Please don’t come back in except at my call.” 

“Yes, Judge,” the guards respond and file quickly out of the room. 

For his part, Vaan stays still. The only sound he makes a shallow rush of his breathing, in and out. It’s a small comfort that Drace probably can’t hear the pounding of his heart in his ears. 

Her heels click against the flagstones behind him. Back and forth they trace, from one end of the cramped little cell to the other. 

“Please,” Vaan says, in as full-throated a voice as he can manage. “Whatever you’re going to do-- Just don’t.” 

“Don’t?” She asks, almost wistfully. “Why not?” 

“I understand what it is you’re trying to teach me.” 

The heels click again, closer now. Vaan strains to feel the warmth of her body, aching fearfully as he tries to pin down where exactly she is behind him. “And what is that?” 

Vaan feels he’s about to cry again -- eyes preemptively wet and hot, with a lump forming swiftly in his throat. “Thievery...begets thievery.” 

“Mmm, poetic.” Drace presses herself up against Vaan’s back and he can feel something cold and hard and unmistakably _bladelike_ press between his shoulder blades. The knife pulls at his vest and he shakes and writhes in the shackles. 

“Not my vest, please. Let me keep my clothes, at least. When you let me go, I’ll-- I’ll need them.” 

“You gave a nice answer about what you think we’re trying to teach you, you know.” Drace puts the blade of her knife under his armpit and pulls and pulls until Vaan can hear the fabric tear. “But that wasn’t the answer I would have picked.” Judge Drace pulls the first sleeve free of Vaan’s arm and sets out on the other.

“No, the thing I hope you learn from this -- and learn fast -- is that you aren’t special, Vaan the thief. 

“You are one of a million little crawling things lost in that city. And yes, you will be missed by some, but only as long as they can spare the time to miss you. And yet you _are_ special.” 

She pulls the second sleeve from Vaan’s shoulder. His favorite piece of clothing -- his favorite possession -- ruined on the ground where he can’t even see. The metaphor doesn’t escape him. She steps away, leaving his back cold, and there’s a soft slap as something hits the ground, then a slithering as Drace takes two more steps backwards. 

“You are special because of what you afford to me, and the other judges. Release. Harmless fun like the gods used to have. Do you understand?”

Fear grips Vaan’s spine and stomach harder than any chain or manacle could ever manage. He speaks a single word through full, wracking sobs. “Y-Yes.” 

“Mmm, I bet you do.” 

A wooshing sound is all the warning Vaan has before a stinging, fire-white pain cracks across his back. It feels like a claw has raked across him from shoulder to hip in the span of less than a breath. 

“Say it again. Do you understand what you’re good for?”

Drace cracks the whip against his back again and Vaan wails. “Yes!” 

She sucks in a deep breath and her voice is rougher when she says: “Again!” 

The third crack crosses back over the first and the pain is more than just hot and shocking, it is blinding, deafening. Vaan screams. “YES!” He collapses against the manacles and hangs by sore, raw wrists. He sobs and sobs and sobs. Judge Drace quietly clicks her heels across the ground and circles the room. 

He doesn’t count how many lashes she gives him, but he wishes he were dead long before they’re over. He wishes that even more when Drace finally drops the whip and comes up behind him, pressing her front to his mutilated back. Her hands go to the waistband of his pants, one dipping inside and the other rubbing him from without. Vaan is so shocked he can’t even speak, all of his breathe stolen away by the pain that warms his entire body like a fire. 

She starts to stroke him to hardness and at last he manages a weak, “no,” but it deters her not at all. If anything, he feels like it makes her press tighter to him, jerk him rougher in her calloused hands. 

She doesn’t jerk him _off_ , but she does bring him to anguished attention, caught between the poles of warm arousal and the burning, electric sensitivity of a fresh wound. 

“Are you going to be good for me, Vaan? Now that we’ve established your role?” 

Vaan knows that it would be best to say _yes_ again, just once more, or at least nod his head, but he can’t. He _can’t._ Luckily it doesn’t seem to matter to Drace whether or not he agrees. She unlocks the manacles all the same and he crumples into her cruel and waiting arms. 

“Oh you are a mess, aren’t you?” She asks, dragging him up almost to standing height. “Go, get to the bed and sit.” And with that, Drace drops him to fend for himself. Vaan stumbles, knocking into a wall and the desk on his way, but he eventually makes it to the bed while Drace just watches and pushes a hand through her now sweat-damp hair. 

He doesn’t notice where she gets the pitcher from, but Vaan takes it from her hands and drinks when she commands him to. It’s not water as he’d hoped, but that same heavy, sweet wine. He takes in a few gulps before he thinks he’ll be sick, pulls it away from his mouth, and then puts it back again. He drinks as deeply as his body is able and then drinks more still. 

“Take as much as you want, I know it will help dull the pain.” 

Wine drips from the corner of Vaan’s mouth as he finally pulls the jug away from his lips. “So you know how painful it is.” 

“Of course I do,” says Drace, those awful, sharp brows made even stranger and more sadistic by the flush creeping high onto her cheeks. She stands and begins to remove the leather armor on her chest. “What kind of commander would I be if I couldn’t take the punishments I dole out? But of course I enjoy being on this end of the whip far more.” 

By the time she has removed her shirt, Vaan can see that Drace did not lie about taking the same punishment she gave. Harsh lines of scarred flesh wrap around her thick arms and shoulders, a testament to her tolerance for violence as much as her experience in the imperial army. 

“Drink as much as you want from that,” she says, pulling the wooden chair to the edge of the bed and facing Vaan directly where he sits on the lumpy mattress. “The pain isn’t the only thing I know it will make easier. I’d prefer you loose rather than tense.” 

She must see the flash in Vaan’s eyes at the word _loose_ because she tilts her head and quickly amends, “Not that kind of loose. Which reminds me… Undress. Take your time if you need it, and more wine, but I think we both know well enough how this ends.” 

Vaan’s head is beginning to swim with the long draughts of wine he’s already drunk and the curious high of injury. He tries to sound defiant as he stands and says, “How?” 

Drace stays sitting but helps him roll his pants down from his hips and thighs. Absent of even the task of having to undress himself, Vaan picks the jug back up and swallows as much wine as he is able, feeling it drip and dribble down his front, no doubt staining his pants where they pool around his ankles. 

His erection is only just beginning to flag, but Drace doesn’t let nature take its course, wrapping her hand around him again and pumping, pumping, pumping in a way that Vaan tries as hard as he might not to find familiar or comforting. But still, the warmth of the wine and the ache in his back do their part and he keeps seeing faces swim behind his eyelids that are not the drawn and pointed mask smirking up at him from its seat. 

He hardly even notices when Drace stands and divests herself of her own bottoms, or when she pushes him down into the bed, making the skin of his back sing. Instead, Vaan imagines himself floating on warm water as the judge’s weight settles over him, imagines himself in the bed of some on-and-off lover from the life he had before whatever this is. She spears herself on his cock with a low, gasping groan, and sets a pace like a commander riding to the front of a phalanx. She is as severe in her fucking as she was in her whipping, using Vaan’s body for her pleasure in a way he can hardly understand, let alone keep up with. 

What feels like hours or minutes later, Vaan gasps, her punishing thrusts finally breaking through the haze of his drunkenness enough to stir desire, or at the very least physical response. He cries out in a mixture of pleasure and pain and Drace falters in her rhythmic fucking. 

“What’s that?” She says breathlessly, “going to finish on me before I say? I don’t think so. I don’t fucking think so.” One hand presses down hard on Vaan’s chest and the other comes to snake around his neck, closing like a vise. 

Tears of shock and strain spring to his eyes, but Vaan can’t even manage to croak out a _no_ before she seems to have all but forgotten him. Vaan searches her face not out of want, but fearful attention, trying to do anything to keep himself from passing out. But Drace pays him no mind. Her eyes roll back into her head, which she throws back as she rides him even faster and harder. Inside, she squeezes him tighter than Vaan has ever felt before until suddenly-- suddenly, she’s not squeezing at all, but sucking and fluttering and pulsing in the tell-tale spasms of orgasm. Vaan might even feel something wet splash around his hips as she comes, a great warm gush that will mingle with his blood in the scratchy sheets of this cot. 

He lets it all happen for as long as it takes, powerless to stop it but not powerless to survive it. 

\-- 

After Drace is Bergan. 

He comes for Vaan in his cell and walks him personally to his own rooms. Vaan isn’t sure what he expected, but the bareness and utility seem ominously in character. He’s heard enough about Bergan that he hardly even has to wonder. A brutal fighter who would sooner kill a questioning soldier than write him up for insubordination, or even jail him in anticipation of someone else doing the writing up. 

There’s a bedroom somewhere, but that’s not where Bergan takes him first. 

Instead, there’s a training room off the vestibule where Bergan, hero of the empire and nightmare of its enemies, throws Vaan down against a bench and rapes him without so much as a word of hello. He waits only as long as it takes him to remove the plug Ghis had replaced so many hours ago and run two fingers through the milky slurry it held at bay. He spares a noise of disgust for the mixture and sets to fucking it out of Vaan as hard and fast as he can. 

He cums quickly but lacks whatever compunction it was that led Zargabaath and Ghis to want to keep his spend inside Vaan’s body, instead pulling out with a quick and brutal yank. He watches, winded, as his cum drips from Vaan’s loose hole to swirl and congeal alongside that of Zargabaath and Ghis, indistinguishable as they now are. 

In the aftermath, Vaan breathes in the cool, sweaty smell of the training room and thinks very hard about the grain of the wood under his hands, how different it is from the desk in Ghis’ office or the table in the little cell from earlier. He very much _does not think_ about how his cock is traitorously hard between his legs from nothing else than being fucked like an animal over a bench. 

After what feels like an eternity of sweat cooling on Vaan’s back, Bergan finally sighs and stands up and Vaan falls from the bench fully to his knees, then onto his ass on the ground. Bergan stands over him in casual clothes -- just a shirt and breeches -- and looks down at Vaan as if looking down at an insect he very much looks forward to squashing beneath his boot. 

“Zargabaath doesn’t lie. You are a treat. I’ve never known someone to moan and cry like that at the same time.” 

Puzzled, Vaan reaches up and touches his cheek and finds it wet.

“Are you one of the ones who’ll listen or will I need to carry you kicking and screaming around the rooms?” 

Bergan’s honesty takes Vaan by surprise and he fumbles for a few minutes over his own thoughts before he can form words with which to answer. “I’ll listen. If you let me rest, I’ll listen.” 

“Hm.” Bergan doesn’t seem too pleased with Vaan’s attempt at bargaining, but he doesn’t argue either. “You’ll rest when I say you rest. But you’ll rest. Will you still listen?” 

“Fine,” Vaan says, and hangs his head. 

He finds after the first few hours that Bergan’s idea of “rest” is Vaan being tied down to something. Sometimes it means taking toys or cock, but just as often it means being pulled and pushed into new and unfamiliar postures while Bergan disappears to ruin someone else’s day. 

But, Vaan is somewhat surprised to find, Bergan gives him enough leeway to clean and care for himself. He’s so pleased by this that it takes him two days to notice that he’s being kept in Bergan’s quarters like a caged animal. He spends an afternoon tied to a rack, staring daggers at the training staves on the far wall and seriously considering attempting to hurt Bergan. He remembers what a terrible idea this would be upon Bergan’s return. 

Sweaty and flushed from some exertion he will not tell Vaan about, Bergan comes to watch his captive hang limply from his bonds for a length of time that Vaan can only imagine is “enjoying his fill.” Bergan releases Vaan’s legs first and his arms not at all. 

This is what always reminds him why he can’t and shouldn’t resist: the way Bergan treats his body like a toy. He bends it and fucks it and very nearly breaks it. He marks it up with bruises from his fingers, from floggers and ropes and chains as fine as jewelry. And at the end of it all, every time, he’s barely even tired. 

So Bergan fucks him on the rack where Vaan has been trapped for nearly four hours, first with his cock and then with the pommel of a sword, and directly after, he cuts Vaan down and disembarks for another engagement. 

And that night, Bergan fucks him again, using his throat like nothing more than a sleeve and shooting down it so hard and so long that Vaan coughs up his cum in boogery, slimy strings for nearly an hour. 

But for all of the ways that Bergan hurts Vaan, there’s one thing he won’t do. Not once, not ever, not even by accident will he let Vaan come. 

The torment lasts for nearly seven days, and by the end of it, Vaan is fully mad with it. He doesn’t want to be fucked by Bergan any longer, or anyone, possibly ever, but he spends nearly every waking hour of his life thinking about that precipice he hasn’t been allowed to reach since he came to this fine, stone hell. 

He thinks about cumming as he tends to his healing back in the bath and as he dispassionately eats the bread and cheese Bergan brings him twice per day. He thinks about cumming when he’s being raped to the point of senseless babbling, and in the aftermath as he hates hates _hates_ his own aching, leaking cock as much as he hates every cock that’s fucked him in this place. 

But he can’t bring himself to touch himself in the few hours he has alone. It feels...wrong somehow. He hardly wants to touch himself to wash and eat after everything else that has touched him. So he doesn’t. He just lets Bergan return and do again and again what Vaan knows will not bring him any relief. He lets himself be the cocksleeve Bergan treats him as, curling into himself, thinking of his body as little more than a husk, filled with blooming aches and the empire’s prized cum. 

\-- 

By the time he is given to Gabranth, there is little of Vaan left. 

He isn’t even able to muster tears as the man who ruined his life taunts him and examines his body like it is for sale on a block, calling him useless and pretty and broken and used. 

That horrible, familiar face breathes honeyed breath into Vaan’s face and Vaan lets himself sink into the fantasy that he is his brother and that at least, maybe, there is another brother out there somewhere who gets to live. 

As for Vaan, he gets fucked. And he gets the novel prickle of shame as, at the very height of ithe shuts his eyes, cries out, and begs for Judge Gabranth to let him cum. And he does, with Gabranth pounding his ass and laughing in his face, Vaan finally gets his release. Just like Drace had said. 

And like everything else here, it is of little comfort. But it’s all the comfort he’ll ever know again. 


End file.
